CE640 Foundation Engineering

Part 4
 Deep Foundations
- to increase the load carrying capacity

- load supported in

End bearing Skin friction

- to transfer the load to a deeper strong stratum

ƒ Types of Deep foundations
- Caissons

- avoids large number of piles

- allows construction in dry work place

Cutting edge

Circular Rectangular

Open caissons Box caissons

- for depths about 15 - 40 m

- work chamber pressure

100-150 kN/m2

Work chamber

Pneumatic Caissons
- Piers
- diameter > 760 mm

End bearing End bearing Domed bell Angled bell

cased uncased end bearing Friction

Common drilled pier configurations

- Pile foundations

Group and single pile on very firm soil stratum

Group and single pile on rock or very firm stratum
Piles are classified into the following four types :

(a) Large-displacement piles, which include all solid piles,

including precast concrete piles, and steel or concrete
tubes closed at the lower end by a driving shoe or a plug,
i.e. cast-in-place piles.

(b) Small-displacement piles, which include rolled steel

sections such as H-piles and open-ended tubular piles.
However, these piles will effectively become large
displacement piles if a soil plug forms.
(c) Replacement piles, which are formed by machine
boring, grabbing or hand-digging. The excavation may
need to be supported by bentonite slurry, or lined with a
casing that is either left in place or extracted during
concreting for re-use.

(d) Special piles, which are particular pile types or

variants of existing pile types introduced from time to
time to improve efficiency or overcome problems related
to special ground conditions.
Offshore pile group
Tension pile Pile penetrating through
an expansive or consolidating
soil
 Methods of evaluation of carrying
capacity
ƒ Dynamic pile driving formulae
-based on impulse-momentum principles
Wr
h

Wh
Basic formula Pu = Wp
s

s
Pu
Several other formulae are available
Wr
⎡ + 2
Wp ⎤ h
⎡ h h⎤
1 .25 e E W n
Pu = ⎢ ⎥ ⎢
r
⎥
⎣ s + C ⎦ ⎢⎣ Wr + W p ⎥⎦

Wp
C - elastic rebound of pile

n - Coefficient of restitution s
eh - Efficiency of hammer Pu
ƒ Analytical methods

- use of shear strength parameters

obtained by laboratory tests

End bearing Skin friction

End Bearing

- in clay

Bearing capacity equation

⎛ ′ ′ ′ ′ ′⎞
qult = cNc ⎜1+ Sc + dc − ic − bc − gc ⎟
⎝ ⎠

reduces to
End bearing

q ult = 9 c u
- in sand (Janbu’s (1976) Method)

qu = cN c + q′N q
* *

End bearing

[
N q = tan φ + 1 + tan φ e 2η ′ tan φ
* 2
]2

= (N )
− 1 cot φ
* *
Nc q

η' ~ 70º for soft clays

~ 105º for dense sandy soil
-Full magnitude cannot be realised until pile tip has penetrated at least 10%-
25% of the width of the pile.
Skin Resistance

- Skin Resistance in Sand

Qs = ∑ p ΔL f

p - perimeter of pile
Skin friction
L - Length of pile
f - unit frictional resistance

f = Kσ v′ tan δ

K - Coefficient of lateral earth pressure

δ − Soil-pile angle of wall friction
 (i) Bored piles (Non-displacement piles)
- Jaky (1944)

K = K 0 = 1 − sin φ ′ - Jaky (1944)

(ii) Low displacement piles (H-section piles)

K = K 0 = 1 − sin φ ′ - (Lower limit)

K = 1 .4 K 0 - (Upper limit)

(iii) High displacement piles

E.g. Concrete driven piles, Close ended pile
K = K 0 = 1 − sin φ ′ - (Lower limit)

K = 1.8 K 0 - (Upper limit)

δ = f (φ) for pre-cast concrete piles.
δ/φ Ratio

Smooth surface Rough surface

Dry sand Wet sand Dry sand Wet sand
0.76 0.80 0.88 0.90
- Skin Resistance in Clay

α − method

Qs = ∑ p Δ L f

p - perimeter of pile
α
L - Length of pile
f - unit frictional resistance

f = α cu cu

α - adhesion factor
λ − method (Vijayvergia and Fotch (1972)

-based on the assumption that the displacement

of soil caused by pile driving results in a passive
lateral pressure at any depth and the average
unit skin resistance is
 β − method (Burland (1973)

Assumptions:
1. Soil remolding adjacent to the pile during driving
reduces the effective stress cohesion intercept on a
Mohr's circle to zero.

2. The effective stress acting on the pile surface after

dissipation of excess pore pressures generated by
volume displacement is at least equal to the horizontal
effective stress (K0) prior to pile installation.

3. The major shear distortion during pile loading is confined

to a relatively thin zone around the pile shaft, and
drainage of this thin zone either occurs rapidly during
loading or has already occurred in the delay between
driving and loading.
Unit Skin Friction is given by,

σvʹ = vertical effective stress

β = K tan φR
φR = drained friction angle of remolded clay
K = earth pressure coefficient

Total Skin Resistance

Using Penetration Test Data for
Pile Point Resistance

For standard penetration test (SPT) data

Meyerhof (1956, 1976) proposed

N = statistical average of the SPT N55

numbers in a zone of about 8B above
to 3B below the pile point. Use any
applicable SPT N corrections
Using Penetration Test Data for Pile Point Resistance

N55 = statistical average of the blow count in the stratum

(with any corrections)
 Using Static Cone Penetration Test

For displacement piles, ultimate

unit skin friction is given by

For H-section piles, ultimate unit

skin friction is given by
Calculation of end resistance of pile form
static cone penetration test by Van der
Veen's method.

where qc = average cone resistance (kg/cm2) over the

length of pile shaft under consideration.
Meyerhof states that for straight-sided displacement piles
the ultimate unit skin friction has a maximum value of 107
kN/m2 and,

for H-section piles a maximum of 54 kN/m2 (calculated on

all surfaces of flanges and web).
Example: Cone Resistance (kg/cm2)

100
110
120
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0
0
1

Shown in the figure is the variation 2

3

of static cone resistance with depth 4

5
of a dense sand deposit. A pile of 6

diameter 0.5 m and length 15 m is

7

Depth (m)
8

driven in the above sand deposit. 10

9
Mean
11
12
13
Using the cone penetration test 14
15
data, evaluate in kN, 16
17
18

(1) Ultimate end resistance 19

20
(2) Ultimate skin resistance
(3) Allowable capacity of the pile
 ƒ Pile load tests

- the most reliable method

to evaluate the load capacity

- the most expensive

- Load increments of 25%

of the proposed working
load is applied up to 1 1/2
or 2 times the working load
ƒ Pile load test results

SETTLEMENT(mm)
6.00
4.00
-Settlement Vs Time
2.00

-Load Vs Settlement 0.00

0:00 6:00 12:00 18:00 0:00
TIM E (Hr)
- allowable pile load is taken
as one-half of that load
which causes a net 250

settlement of not more than LOAD (MT) 200

1 mm/35 kN. 150

100

50

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

SETTLEMENT(mm)
1. From 0 to point a the capacity is based on the skin
resistance plus any small point contribution.

The skin resistance capacity is the principal load-carrying

mechanism in this region. Point a usually requires some
visual interpretation since there is seldom a sharp break in
the curve.
2. From point a to b the load capacity is the sum of the
limiting skin resistance (now a constant) plus the point
capacity.

3. From point b the curve becomes vertical as the ultimate

point capacity is reached. Often the vertical asymptote is
anticipated (or the load to some value is adequate) and the
test terminated before a "vertical" curve branch is
established.
PILE GROUPS

Typical pile-group patterns: (a) for isolated pile caps;

Typical pile-group patterns: (b) for foundation walls.
 EFFICIENCY OF PILE GROUPS
The Converse-Labarre equation is

This equation is limited to rectangular groups with identifiable

values of m X n
Sayed and Bakeer (1992) introduced an efficiency equation
of the form

Qs = shaft friction resistance for each pile in group

Qp = point load for each pile in group

η' = geometric efficiency parameter, which can be

computed using the equation given earlier (generally in
the range of 0.6 to 2.5)

K = group interaction factor (also to be estimated); ranges

from 0.4 to about 9.0

For end-bearing piles the Σ Qs term is zero, giving Eg = 1

Example:

A concrete precast pile of diameter 0.5 m and length 15 m is driven

through a soil deposit consisting of medium stiff clay for the upper 5 m
of the pile and stiff clay underneath it. The water table was found to be
at the ground surface.

The undrained shear strength of medium stiff clay and stiff clay was
found to be 50 kN/m2 and 100 kN/m2 respectively.

The saturated unit weight of medium stiff and stiff clay may be taken
as 17 kN/m3.

Calculate the working load for the pile.

If twenty four piles are arranged in a rectangular grid of 6 x 4 piles,

with a centre to centre spacing of 1.5 m, calculate the working load for
the pile group.
 Negative Skin Friction

Sand fill

Neutral plane

Soft Clay

(a)Clay fill over (a) Sand fill over soft clay

granular soil
For cohesive fill overlying cohesionless soils

α' = coefficient relating the effective lateral

pressure qK to the shearing resistance
about the pile perimeter;
α' = tanδ where δ ≅ 0.5 to 0.9φ; Su is replaced
by
qK as this is somewhat of a drained case
p' = pile perimeter
K = lateral earth-pressure coefficient; use K = K0 = 1 - sin φʹ
q = effective overburden pressure at any depth z
For cohesive soil underlying cohesionless fill

L is the effective pile length in the

embedment zone

Below the neutral point positive friction is

developed to the bottom of effective pile
length L:
Example:
 Pullout Resistance
Piles in Clay (Das and Seely, 1982)

Tu -Buoyancy in submerged water tanks,

swimming pools

-Pile foundations in expansive soils

Tun

Tun = Lpα ' cu

L

W
p = πD
α = adhesion coefficient
D
Piles in Sand (Das and Seely, 1975)
Tu

Tun
L

D
Example:
LATERALLY LOADED PILES

Vertical pile embedded in a

granular soil - Matlock and
Reese (1960)

(a) Laterally loaded pile; (b) soil resistance on pile caused

by lateral load;

(c) sign conventions for displacement, slope, moment,

shear, and soil reaction
According to a simpler Winkler's model, an elastic medium
(soil in this case) can be replaced by a series of infinitely close
independent elastic springs.

Based on this assumption,

k = modulus of subgrade reaction

pʹ = pressure on soil
x = deflection
The subgrade modulus for granular soils at a depth z is
defined as
kz = nh z

nh = constant of modulus of horizontal subgrade reaction

Using the theory of beams on an elastic foundation

Ep = modulus of elasticity in the pile material

Ip = moment of inertia of the pile section

Based on Winkler's model

pʹ = -k x
When L ≥ 5T, the pile is considered to be a long pile.
For L ≤ 2T, the pile is considered to be a rigid pile.

Table 9.9 gives the values of the coefficients for long

piles (L≥ 5T)
Vertical pile embedded in a cohesive soil – Davisson and
Gill (1963)
Example
 Settlement of Pile Foundations

Settlement of a single pile in cohesionless soils (Sg)

Poulos and Davis charts (1968)

Young’s modulus = Esoil

Settlement of pile (δ),

P
δ = × Is
E soil L
Where,

Is - Influence factor ( Non- dimensional)

 Settlement of pile group in cohesionless soils (Sg)

•determine the settlement of a single pile - S1

⎛ Sg ⎞
•Using the relationship of ⎜⎜ ⎟ Vs. B (width of pile group)
⎟
⎝ S1 ⎠

2
Sg ⎛ 4B + 3 ⎞
=⎜ ⎟ B in metres
S1 ⎝ B + 4 ⎠
 Settlement of a pile group in a cohesive soil (Sg)
Assume that the settlement is equal to the settlement undergone by an
equivalent raft.

Compute immediate and consolidation settlement of the equivalent raft.

Design of Caisson Foundations
 Perimeter Shear stress

Permissible Shear stress

Dewatering the shaft completely is unsafe and the
thickness of the seal should be increased by,
Example
END